The golden rays of morning bled through the stained-glass ceiling of Flame Land Academy, painting the floor in fractured hues of violet, amber, and blood red. The classroom — known as Class A-Line — sat in eerie silence, though it held over fifty elite students. Even the wind dared not intrude.
Yuji sat by the long glass-pane window, one leg crossed, eyes slightly narrowed, watching the reflection of his breath on the surface. Aika was beside him, her back straight, arms folded, but her gaze fixed on the door — as if something terrible were destined to arrive.
It did.
The double doors didn't creak. They shattered open with wind-charged force.
A man entered — no, a mountain cloaked in authority and storm.
Krael.
His boots echoed like war drums. His cloak fluttered with hidden glyphs—Wind Sigils etched into the threads themselves. His eyes? Piercing blue like the sky before a storm. He said nothing, only walked toward the center of the marble floor and rammed down the butt of his bone-hilted spear. It rang like a bell forged in another world.
Silence broke.
Then came his voice — raw, deep, unforgiving:
> "Today, we speak not of books.
Not of theory. Not of rank.
Today… we speak of war."
A ripple of alarm passed through the class like an invisible flame. Some students straightened in pride. Others paled in confusion. Yuji simply blinked once, then leaned in.
Krael raised a hand. A scroll unfolded mid-air — its paper burning with blue fire — and it projected a 3D battlefield: floating islands, burning arenas, cracked elemental platforms, wind vortexes swirling.
> "The Grand Team War Arena begins in three days.
Two-man teams. One hundred in total.
Ten elimination rounds.
No weapons provided. No healing granted.
The land itself will bend to your elements."
Murmurs. Gasps. Someone dropped their ring. Another clutched his chest. Aika glanced at Yuji. He didn't flinch — not yet.
Then Krael did the unthinkable. From his back, he removed a metallic black box—secured with six locks and three sealing glyphs.
One by one, he undid them.
Inside lay a claw — shriveled, yet still radiating heat — pulsing with silent screams. It was fused to a fragment of bone, veined with glowing silver.
> "This belonged to a creature called the Sky Raptor.
A beast that roared storms into birth.
Its final bone... still remembers."
No one breathed.
Krael's voice deepened.
> "Win this tournament… and you may choose one of the Bone Artifacts. Fuse it to your spine. Survive the pain.
If the soul accepts you…
you will wield abilities your ring can never dream of."
A student near the back stood up, trembling. "T-That's forbidden magic! Bone fusion is outlawed—"
Krael's eyes flicked toward him.
> "Outlawed? No.
Only feared…
because it chooses only those worthy of death and rebirth."
A hush fell.
Someone in the front row whispered, "But… why now?"
Krael stepped forward, eyes scanning the students like a god choosing sacrifices.
> "Because something is coming.
And when it arrives,
your medals, your grades,
your rankings—
will burn with the rest of your world."
Yuji felt it in his chest then — a slight stirring in the wind around him. Not summoned, not controlled.
A whisper.
> "He's not wrong," the wind seemed to say.
"But he's not telling the whole truth either."
And then…
A presence.
Soft, like petals brushing skin. A disturbance that passed through the air with perfect silence.
Yumi.
She appeared not to all, only to Yuji — clad in an invisibility cloak woven from Wind Dust. Her lips barely moved as she leaned to his ear:
> "We may have found a way home."
"Her name… is Xioner.
She's alive. She waited. And she remembers everything."
Yuji froze. His third eye pulsed for a moment — as if sensing a distant heartbeat he once thought lost.
> "But… how?"
She was gone before he turned.
Gone like a breeze that never intended to stay.
The scroll above Krael folded back into ash.
> "Prepare. Pair wisely. Fuse if you dare.
Glory awaits. Or death."
"Dismissed."
As he exited, the wind followed him — not obeying, but acknowledging.
The class remained stunned. Then came the explosion of whispers. Teams began to form. Eyes glowed with rivalry, envy, ambition. But Yuji?
Yuji sat unmoving, lost in thought.
Xioner… alive?
His fingers clenched.
Aika nudged him softly. "Are we a team?"
He looked at her, and the storm brewing in his chest calmed just a little.
"…Always."
But inside, another war had begun.
Not for Crimstones.
Not for Bone Artifacts.
But for the truth.
And the path back home.
---
The Grand Team War Arena was never merely a contest of strength or skill — it was a war in its rawest, most brutal form. Yet beneath the thunderous clashes and roaring crowds lay a darker truth: this was corruption dressed as spectacle, a cruel theater crafted for the amusement of nobles hungry for blood and power.
And amid this chaos, Xioner remained an enigma — a shadow slipping through the folds of every battle, her motives inscrutable and her presence unsettling. As for Qangkai, its very nature defied comprehension; a force so elusive that no scholar nor warrior could claim to understand its depths, leaving all who faced it grasping at whispers in the wind.
---
The air inside the hidden refuge was thick with the scent of damp earth and forgotten secrets.
Ryen knelt beside Xioner, whose pale form trembled beneath the faded light of a fractured crystal lantern. Her breath came in shallow waves, as if the weight of her memories pressed upon her lungs like chains.
Ryen's fingers traced the bruises along her leg—dark, angry blooms beneath her skin. His voice was quiet, almost tender, as he asked the question that burned between them.
> "Who did this to you?"
Xioner's eyes fluttered open, the glowing veins beneath her skin pulsing faintly like dying stars. Her voice was a whisper, fragile yet filled with the remnants of defiance.
> "Some people… but I don't know exactly who."
She coughed, a rasp that seemed to shake the fragile frame she inhabited.
> "They called me Qangkai.
Their vessel.
Their failure."
Ryen's gaze hardened.
> "They used you as a weapon—and as a lab rat."
She nodded, eyes drifting to the shadows.
> "And yet… I am still here."
The ground beneath the refuge seemed to throb in agreement.
---
Meanwhile, far from the dim sanctuary, in a palace that gleamed like frozen fire, Mina stood alone before a towering obsidian window. Beyond, the swirling mists of the Original World stretched—endless, untamed, and waiting.
Her mind was a storm.
A flicker of realization shattered her calm.
> "Time ability… World Shift."
She muttered the words like a curse.
In an instant, the room dissolved.
Light tore apart reality, folding Mina into threads of existence.
When she opened her eyes again, she was in a cold marble hall, the seat of power in Zeyrus.
Around a grand table sat figures carved from authority and steel—King Kael, the indomitable ruler; Commander Xian, stern and unyielding; Zian Zee, a shadow cloaked in pride; and Li, whose eyes glittered like sharpened blades.
They were oblivious to the world beyond their walls—unaware of the Flame World's raging fires, unaware of the threads that tied their fate to distant lands.
Kael's voice broke the silence like thunder.
> "Mina, you are finally here.
Our plan to conquer Sarenya must proceed without error."
Mina's eyes narrowed, though no emotion crossed her face.
> "What is this plan?"
Kael spread a map across the table, its surface alive with flickering light.
> "We send twenty soldiers to attack head-on, drawing their eyes, their strength.
Meanwhile, a secret force of thirty will infiltrate through the underground veins—their very lifeblood.
A strike that will shatter Sarenya's heart before it knows pain."
Li's fingers drummed coldly on the table.
> "The Kenin—excuse me, Keyn-Ya Guild—will cripple their defenses, sowing chaos beneath their flawless streets."
Kael nodded.
> "They will never see us coming."
Mina's mind screamed beneath her calm facade.
> Idiots.
They don't understand the flames licking at their backs.
They don't know what burns beyond their maps and plans.
She turned, eyes blazing with silent fury.
> "Your arrogance will be your undoing."
---
Back in the shadows of Flame World, a new figure stepped forward.
Tall, lean, and sharp as a hawk's talon, Ryung surveyed the shifting alliances and fragile peace with a predator's grin.
He was only nineteen, but his mind danced with centuries of scheming.
> "Zeyrus will throw its armies at Sarenya.
Verin will strike at Kaidu.
Their wars are old dances, repeated endlessly."
He paused, fingers tracing an invisible pattern in the air.
> "But between their games, when their eyes are elsewhere...
That is when the true war begins."
His gaze flickered to a shadow beside him.
Feng Lee.
A ghost in flame, a master of elemental cores.
> "With Feng Lee's help, I will steal their Core Elements—
The essence of their nations, their souls."
Ryung smiled, teeth sharp as the blades he carried.
> "Once I hold their cores, I will reshape this world.
Not with armies. Not with brute force.
But with the stolen breath of nations."
He turned to the horizon where the flame-drenched sky met shadow.
> "Let them fight.
Let them bleed.
I will rise from the ashes of their ignorance."
---
Meanwhile, beneath the earth, in a secret chamber lit by glowing fungus and crystal veins, Xioner rested.
Her body weakened, but her mind raced.
> "They don't know what I am…
They don't know what I carry."
Ryen sat quietly beside her.
> "We will find out, together."
She smiled, faint but resolute.
> "Because I am not just a weapon or a failure.
I am the bridge between worlds."
Outside, the pulse beneath the earth grew louder.
A drumbeat echoing through veins of flame and shadow.
A warning.
A promise.
The war for all worlds had only just begun.
---
END OF CHAPTER 29